Printing presses for making multiple part business forms have heretofore been made. One such press is illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 3,147,006 which was granted to me on Sept. 1, 1964. In such machine the webs are advanced and controlled by line hole punch and pin belt mechanisms which act on the webs beyond the printing station to pull the web through such printing operation and on to further processing after they have been printed. Such mechanisms have functioned successfully for processing up to seven or eight webs at a speed of one thousand feet per minute. The demand for more parts to be printed and processed in a single machine, and the demand for more specifications on the individual webs, however, increases substantially the overall length of the machine. Such increase requires the control line hole punch mechanisms to be located farther away from the printing operation being performed on the webs, with the result that registration, esepcially the side-ways registration becomes difficult to maintain.
Such difficulty arises partly from the fact that paper is not a constant in its performance, but is affected by atmospheric conditions very readily. For example, a web of paper which is laid down in an intended straight line will curve one way or another depending upon the percentage of moisture content, and especially the moisture content adjacent the edges of the paper roll.
Another factor which contributes to the aforesaid difficulty is the fact that, as aforesaid, webs are advanced by being pulled through the processing operations, such as printing, by means of control holes and pinned belts. It has been found that after a certain distance from the printing operation to the line hole punch station, the curve of the webs affects the registration of the web parts. Such variation in the action of the paper webs can be the result of atmospheric conditions at the time of advancing the webs through the press, or the result of atmospheric conditions experienced in the storage of the rolls of paper prior to use in the press. It is augmented by any increase in distance between the web supply rolls and the web pulling or advancing mechanisms.
Thus, there has been a need for a multiple business form machine which can process a large number of webs at a high speed without lateral misalignment of the webs.